Topic: Carolyn Brown

To Cure What Ails You: A 43-year-old patient with well-controlled blood pressure replaced her prescriptions with a cheaper herbal treatment, a liquid containing an extract from a small fruit-bearing tree known as zapote blanco. Four months later, she ended up in an El Paso emergency room with stage IV hypertension. This is just one of the cases that University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy experts follow as the economy sours and more and more people turn to over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and alternative medicines such as herbals to treat their illnesses--sometimes putting their health at risk.